Chapter 11: Knowing

There are a lot of things in my life I'll never forget. That day, will be one of them.

Our hull was breached. Cracked open like an egg, our barriers gone. We had explosions going on all around us; hazard lights flaring, the counsel shrieking at me to work faster, harder – but we were going down. Every pilot's worst nightmare and I never, ever thought it would happen to me. Me, dammit. You forget everything under pressure like that, your mind stops working – everything comes down to your hands. Your muscle memory. I always told those assholes at the Academy that they shouldn't laugh at what people can't do, because it only makes the things they can do stronger. I can't run a marathon, but I can fly anything. Anything. A carpet square if I have to - though the eye of a needle. I may have spent most of my life in a chair, but that chair sat at the business end of a 200 ton faster-than-light turian-human cosmonautical lovechild custom engineered to fuck your shit up. There was fire, but I didn't feel it. My eardrum was perforated, but I don't remember how. She had never failed me, she never judged me - my baby, the best thing I ever flew. I wasn't leaving her without a fight.

I wouldn't. I didn't.

Her pieces, metal bits – like flesh and bone, where flying around me, slicing my face. Ten minutes ago, it's almost funny, we were just soaring by, completely normal. Four days with nothing, not a damn peep. I should have known; I should have seen it, how odd that was for where we were. The Terminus system. Jesus Christ.

We were flying stealth, we saw the cruiser – slavers we thought. No reaction time. I should have reacted. Why didn't I see it? A single crack, and our weapons were toast. Bam! – and we were flying neutered. I turned around; everyone was dead. Just lying face down on her shiny floor. But I just keep screaming updates into the comm. Just screaming, like it mattered.

I could smell the plastic burning beneath my fingers, but they just kept moving. Pressing. Dialing. Forcing coordinates. Sliding through flight path algorithms. Reinstating shield boosters that never started. The oxygen getting thin. Somehow, I put my atmospheric regulator on. I don't even remember where I put it, or how. I just needed her, my girl, to hold together, just a little longer.

Just a little longer.

And then, she just appeared. From heaven, or hell – maybe she played for both sides. A valkyrie, just like in the textbooks; the flames around her. A part of her. Her hand on my shoulder, warm, nails digging through those gloves. Her face in mine, screaming words at me I still can't hear. But I wouldn't abandon my girl – I could still save her. Goddammit, she never left us. She was always there for us, for me – I flew with her right into the mouth of a monster and she never quit me. I prayed for her, for us, more times than I could count. I wouldn't leave her. I couldn't.

But the commander – the commander. A black helmet and a wasp's body, those nails digging, everything lost behind that reflective sheen. I wasn't even sure if I even liked her – sure we had our moments, but she wasn't exactly what I would call relaxed. Her style, well, it veered left where mine veered right. But there we were, fools for fools. Me trying to save the Normandy, and the commander trying to save me. Two lost causes. The irony.

Screaming. Thrashing. Two strong hands with razor sharp nails, my body lifting, gravity gone. The inferno in our faces. My love torn to pieces in my upside down world. Her silver flesh ripped from her bones, peeled back like orange skin, ripped into the cold I-don't-give-a-shit of space. I could hear her screaming in the soundlessness. A billion angry pieces, just sucked away. But the commander. I never knew she could lift me; I mean, I'm not exactly a big guy, but I still couldn't believe it when it was happening, and even now, I guess. I can still see her. I can still hear her. I was over her shoulder, kicking and hollering like a kid. But she carried me.

She carried me.

Me.

It was hot. An understatement. I think my arm was broken. No big effort there. The commander threw me, still talking – what was she saying? Her voice was getting desperate; into the escape pod. She actually threw me. Like a damn feather. I hit the floor, broken ribs. Two sets of bony chick hands on me – Ashley, Liara; crying, their faces ruined from tears. The air pulled harder as our hull, our whole world, ripped in half – torn apart, utterly, inescapably destroyed, the roar as silent as death in the vacuum. We looked. The commander was hanging on by her fingertips, her body shuddering like fabric. We screamed for her, we reached for her, but the door was closing – it closed – it closed, dear God it just closed. Liara was screaming, trying to override it. All I could do was look.

I saw my face in her helmet, for one second, before she was just gone.

Gone.

Just another piece of rubble.

I stared, I screamed. I screamed and screamed. The engine started – we were rocketing away, torn from her, forced apart like two like ends of a magnet. She and the glittering pieces of my ship blasted towards the planet while we went the other, and before I could blink, those pieces, the only thing that proved it had all really happened, were tiny. Just dust against a sphere. Invisible.

You know, I believe in humor. I really do. But sometimes, I wonder, does God? Does God think these things are funny? Sometimes, at a show, a comic will take a joke somewhere pretty dark just to prove that he can. Just to remind the audience who really has the mic, who's really running the show. You can't have them getting all entitled, thinking they can just chime in and heckle – letting them be delusional enough to actually think have a choice in the story, in the joke. No.

No.

Sometimes the comic has to prove himself, has to remind everyone where it all comes from, all the jokes. All the laughter. Because when you look at it, and I mean really look at it - comedy, its tragic. It's sick. What greater a lesson about life; that people laugh at things they really shouldn't, and that God finds humor in striking down the strong so the weak should live. That the healthy are cut down so the sick can breathe. That good people die, while assholes live, and even get rich doing it.

Well I wasn't laughing.

Do you hear me up there you son of a bitch? I wasn't laughing.

I'm not.

Not this time.

Thanks, really.

For nothing.


I waited for him in his lobby.

It was a large square room, nice, if not a touch sparse. Like him, I mused. I looked down at my feet, waiting. It was the middle of the night, but on the Citadel, that meant next to nothing. The sun lamp, now fully restored, was turned down a hair to signify the passage of time. It stung my eyes. There was nothing like a few nights on the Citadel to make me long for my own moonlight, in its eternal silver beauty. Every time the door opened, I would look up. So foolish. One would think that years of academia would teach one discipline. I suppose that I am just good at faking it. Like mother always said, pageantry is everything.

I stared at the floor. Some sort of turian stone, with rivers of dark metal slicing through it like veins. Like blood. I had a hood over my eyes, in crisp white. Thessian wool. Expensive, something I just picked up and bought on the way over in a gift shop. I was tired. I didn't care. I just wanted to hide. My eyes, well. I was surprised I could even see through all the swelling.

No, don't think about it. Just stop.

Stop.

The door opened again. There he was, walking in that long stride, eyes fixed forward. I hadn't seen him in months, but there he was, still exquisite. Moving so fast. The sniper, the engineer. That dazzling one track mind, like a razor, that cut through everything it saw – as long as it was in his path.

I wasn't.

"Garrus." said I.

He turned, that odd feline visage flexing amidst its plates in shocked curiosity. He stared at me. He must not have recognized me through the hood. Through the flushed swelling. "Liara?"

He was considering me, his questioning mind turning behind that imperceptible armor. He cocked his head, appearing now avian, and shifted the heavy rucksack slung over his shoulder. He had just gotten back. I knew because my little hobby had been getting somewhat out of control lately. It's interesting to note how decades of sifting through dry research articles and arcane texts can sharpen one's mind for something a little more…challenging. Information is a very elusive thing – everything we do, every step we take is tracked. Recorded. If people knew the things they left behind in the virtual world, they would swear off technology. I would say that they would never leave their homes, but well. I can find them there too. I've spend my whole life behind glass, watching the world with an empirical eye.

So what is one more lens, one more screen?

The universe at my fingers, the key – just asking the right questions. I made them all my subjects, their lives, my thesis. I even cared for them. It's difficult not to, when you watch the lives of strangers so spread out so bluntly before you; like animals in a zoo. Your eyes are on them but they cannot see. They cannot see you enough to lie to you. And so they go about their business in blissful oblivion; cooking, extranet surfing, relaxing, arguing.

And after a while, you begin to care. For some of them at least.

Others you just want to kill.

This talent, this glut for knowledge that was storming in my mind – it became a hunger that never left, I could feel it spiraling out of control, a monster growing beneath my skin. With everything I learned, my every step became heavier. But I couldn't stop chasing it. Truth; my drug. So beautifully addictive.

Not now.

"Nice to see you. But…"

His eyes traveled over my face, the wheels of his mind turning. I kept my eyes hidden, daring to look only through the white veil of my hood.

"Ah well. Who cares, I'm just glad to have some company. How are you?"

"I know it's late. I am sorry. But there is something we need to discuss."

He looked at me. I saw him moving his mouth parts slightly, that odd little mandible jumping – juxtaposed with the intensity of his glowing eyes.

"Is everything alright?"

He had seen right through me. I kept my face perfectly still. Goddess, I hated lying. But what I hated more, was how easy it was becoming.

"Yes. But it's…private. Can I come upstairs with you?"

"Oh, er, sure."

For the first time since the hour that I had sat there, I saw his security guard raise an eye plate, leering at us as we crossed the space to the elevator. Can we do anything without being fetishized?

"Another elevator," he joked trying to catch my eye, that pleasant voice of his vibrating warmly as he dialed in his floor. "Ever miss those long awkward chats? You know, they're just not the same off the Normandy."

Goddess.

"Yes…those certainly were the times…you haven't been home yet, I take it?"

"No, I just landed. Two days shore leave. Thought I would kick back, drink myself into oblivion and blow all of my stipend at the range before I return to class."

"Oh. Yes. How is that going for you?"

"Wonderful." He was gushing. My heart. Goddess. My heart was weeping for him. He didn't know. He hadn't heard.

"- I have this tradecraft instructor – Sartorius. Complete spook. Half his frill missing – melted off by an acid round. What a mess. But he can disappear in a crowd like a ghost, and for a seven foot turian with half his head missing, well, that's something. Oh, we're here."

Ding.

I kept my mouth shut, my throat burning. The hood was hiding my face, the rain smote upon it. He just kept talking, the poor fool. So pleased to see me. So pleased to see his old friend. I seldom felt my age, but I felt it then.

I felt as ancient as that black veined stone.

He opened his door, and welcomed me. He threw his bag on the floor, the lights revving up.

"No." I asked suddenly. He turned; I hid my face, ducking it low.

"The dark. Please."

I kept my head bowed, but I could feel his eyes on me as we stood as still as stone. He knew. He knew something was wrong. My lips moved. He could see them shuddering.

"My eyes…they are…sensitive. Please. I just need the dark…"

"Liara…"

He came to me, so tall. He tilted his head down, trying to see into my hood, but I moved my chin away from his hand. I darted, crossing the room.

"Where is your tea?" I demanded, desperate to put it off just a moment longer.

I had already seen his heart break once.

"Over there."

He indicated to a silver bar that separated the two halves of his apartment. Impossibly neat, metallic and masculine. The space was small, but it had a tall ceiling. The whole right side was a window. I saw him there, in a jagged black silhouette against the majesty of the Citadel, sliding his finger over the glass to shade out the light, just for me, casting us in grey twilight. This was his sitting area, the massive window beside two gleaming black chairs arranged around a coffee table welded from refuse ship wings, upon it a deconstructed rifle shining new, some of its pieces still in plastic. Odd, he seldom left things unfinished. I scanned further. Two bottles of Rosenkov frictionless lubricant set upon a stack of bill printouts – blue lined envelopes from a hospital. My interest piqued. He turned, I averted my eyes and crossed the room.

I went to his bar, another modern steel concoction, nestled between his sitting room and his kitchen. He nodded to a row of over a dozen steel tins, perfectly cylindrical, featureless and glassy save for a thin line round their center. I picked one up and twisted. Nothing happened. I tried the other way – a little give, weird clicking, and then nothing. I tried again – nothing, again – my anger flushed – losing control I flashed blue with a biotic surge before slamming it on the table and erupting into tears, my cover blown.

The worst part was that he had been expecting it. He walked calmly over to me as I stood there shaking in anguish. Wordlessly, he picked up the cylinder and demonstrated, holding it to his ear and twisting it in miniscule increments, each rotation producing a slightly higher click. His eyes smiled as he showed me, twisting it this way and that, before it made a happy beep and slid open. He exposed the tea.

"It's a puzzle. Harmonics."

"That's brilliant."

"I like to stay sharp. Our language is all about nuance. Keeping a trained ear is vital."

"I don't imagine you have locks like that on your liquor?"

"Hah."

He knelt and grabbed a bottle of wine.

"Stronger." said I, my voice darker than I would have believed a year ago.

His face shifted to surprise, and I was beginning to see his worry. He dug around and extracted something that glimmered an ominous, toxic green. He grabbed two glasses and poured. I sat down, my head in my hands. I heard the clink of the glass against the metal as he set it down in front of me, amidst the constituents of the rifle. He sat across from me, holding his glass, his eyes burning through my hood. My heart was pounding. My lips, were frozen.

I couldn't.

We sat like this for twenty minutes. I couldn't. I couldn't.

I couldn't tell him.

I heard him set down his glass. He knew. He knew me. Goddess, I didn't want to be that little girl crying on his chest again, but he knew. He just knew. I felt my hood being slid off, sliding soft against my crest. I felt the fingers on my hands, so gentle. He pried them from my face, and saw. My eyes inked black. My skin destroyed. My hands snaked into his, five fingers in three, as he stood over me. We just looked at each other. I put my head against his abdomen and closed my eyes.

"Turn on the news."

-ne Shepard, 29, confirmed killed in action last week during an undisclosed objective. Commander Shepard lead the edge against the attempted Geth invasion of the Citadel this year, and assisted in the take down of the terrorist Saren Arterius. Alliance Personnel refused to comment on this tragedy, as details are still-

He fell.

On his knees, beside me. He stared at the screen, and didn't say a word. We watched the pictures move as if on mute. Time, had stopped. I grabbed my glass, and passed it to him. He pushed it away, not tearing his eyes from their prison. His aura became unreadable. I downed the sickening liquid in one pass. He never moved. Frozen.

He just watched.

The reporters talked. Cameras in Anderson's furious face, him storming away from their frenzy. Footage of Jeff being loaded onto a gurney. The white stones of military graves. A montage of Earth, its oceans and skies. A towering city I didn't recognize. A photograph of the Normandy, its turian and human engineers fitting its last panel during its highly publicized christening, a lifetime ago.

A snapshot of a soldier in a group shot, the only female, 21 years old. Smiling somewhat shyly, with a burst of crimson hair.

I saw his fist shaking as it clenched. His nails cut into his palm. A drop of cobalt blood fell upon the floor.

"…how."

I breathed. I talked to his frill, to the screen before it.

"...we were looking for Geth."

"Oh yes, the Geth. Of the 'Geth Invasion'?" he snapped bitterly. I closed my eyes and inhaled, my stomach twisting in ice, my heart in acid.

"Yes. That is their story."

He grabbed my glass and smashed it across the room, where it hit the wall and shattered. I said nothing, as he lept to his feet and began to pace. I kept my head down. I couldn't even look. I pressed on, pointing my words to the blood drop on the floor, watching it tremble as he paced in a long straight line.

"Ships were disappearing. They sent us to look into it. The Terminus system. And then…we were fired upon."

His eyes looked up, and so did mine.

Goddess. The knife and the fire.

His mouth moved. I had never been scared of him, until that moment.

I won't that forget that look until I die.

"Who."

My lips began to tremble, my body shaking. He stalked across the room, unblinking, something insidious in the way he moved his hips, his shoulders. Something off. Something in those eyes that quietly terrified me, something rising up, just behind his face.

Something different from his own.

"…we don't know."

He stood over me, his head bent down. He took off his visor, and set it on the table. He tilted his head, still not moving that terrible gaze and spoke.

"Then show me."

I looked up at him, shocked.

"What?"

"Show me. Show me with your gift."

"I…"

Pain sparked across that murderous glare, dimming the hellfire of his eyes. The harmonics of his voice cleaved, splitting, in fever, as he softly whispered,

"…please."

I looked up at him, my eyes sore with tears yet they just kept falling, each drop a punishment. I shook my head, unsure, exhaling, my fingers gripping my seat.

"I…I can't control some of it…"

"Then give me everything."

I whipped my head back to him, his eyes burning, my lips parted.

An awful burden took me. My mass enflamed, and pinned me to the center of the Universe.

He didn't know what he was asking for.

Dear Goddess.

The things she had seen.

"Those thoughts were hers. I don't know…I don't know if you should see…"

He took my hand, as my shoulders shook with silent weeping. He made me look at him.

He held me in his eyes. My darkness met his.

Eternity; in the blackness behind the blue.

"My friend, I am warning you."

"I am not afraid."

"I know. And that is why I fear for you."

The silence, and the whisper.

"Do it."

I stood, and neared him; feeling something else take over me. He was burning hot. I put my finger on his chest and moved him back as he became as light as air with my tainted touch.

"Sit down. You won't be able to stand after."

He drifted to the chair, his mind already asleep.

Mine.

We weren't supposed to use that part of ourselves. My first time calling upon it. But I had a lot of firsts that year. I laughed inside. A sound I didn't recognize.

It intoxicated me.

I suppose rumors start for a reason.

He looked up at me, complacent. I looked down, my hand raising. My fingers falling to a blade, I touched them to his brow, to the third eye all creatures have. The other two closed.

"I pray for you, turian, for you have asked for that which is not yours. But I shall give it."

He shivered, still half conscious.

"I baptize you, turian, with knowledge. With Knowing. And its weight will change your step."

I reached into my inner Universe, and pulled forth The Sight.

"May the Goddess take mercy on you as you walk the path you have chosen for yourself. Goddess, guide this trespasser with your undying light,"

My eyes became the Void, and Saw.

" …for his path now, is in the shade."

Embrace Eternity.